From ADV:Henrietta barely survived a brutal attack that killed her family. 'Rescued' by the Social Welfare Agency, her injuries were repaired with robotic components and she was brainwashed. Lost with the memory of her family's deaths was almost every trace of her own humanity. Now, she is an extraordinarily lethal cyborg assassin, obediently working with her handler Giuseppe to carry out her deadly tasks. Despite her conditioning and programming, Henrietta still has the heart of a young girl. She has not completely forgotten how to love, yet the very emotion is contrary to her training and programming. Can the Gunslinger Girl survive? Can she find peace in a struggle against her very nature?

Like many, many other manga, Gunslinger Girl has a brilliant premise but a halfhearted execution and inefficient delivery.

Yes, I do feel some pity for these assassins' destroyed childhoods, and I suppose their unrequited loves are very tragic and all, but it isn't written in a way that makes me sympathise. Maybe it's 'cos, unlike the target demographic, I need a better reason for my sympathy than "But the girls are so cute!" Gorgeous little girls or no, none of them seem to feel even a smidgen of remorse about the many, many people they capture, beat up, maim and murder; the only emotion most of them display is mindless devotion to their handler. I don't have a thing for "unconditional love" like most people do, and at any rate the handler-assassin relationship is way too power-skewed, awkward, lolicon-esque and forced for me to support. I don't at all mind reading about killers - especially since the people they kill are killers themselves - but the kids just never seem to worry about the dangerous, precarious nature of their current lives or what their futures will be like. In fact, they're disturbingly like normal girls, except that instead of playing sports after school they go to target practice, and instead of field trips they go out and gun down a bunch of terrorists. The bizarre incongruity between their actions and personalities within the organisation's premises and their actions outside of it means their situation never really 'hit' me.

Also, the portrayals are a bit too one-dimensional. Why aren't there any male assassins and/or female handlers? It would have been very interesting to see a parallel experiment being conducted wherein they used male children in similar situations and doctored them in the same way, to test out how a boy's higher endurance and strength panned out against their less docile and more willful, disobedient behaviour -- perhaps to see whether girls or boys are better suited for the job. And vice-versa for female handlers. How about a lesbian gunslinger girl, who struggles with the brainwashing that makes her adore her male handler vs. her true nature that makes her more inclined towards women, and how she finally makes peace with herself? A girl who's resistant to brainwashing and longs to escape, at the same time struggling with the knowledge that she's physically incapable of living outside? One of the girls meeting people from her past who recognise her and try to bring her back, only to be bribed/intimidated into silence by the organisation? Where are all those interesting, multi-dimensional scenarios?

But these "personal issues" of mine wouldn't have mattered if there had been enough plot and/or action to keep me engaged. The girls aren't involved in any of the planning, and the handlers themselves don't do much in the way of spying, intel-gathering or strategising. There are other people responsible for those things who work largely off-page, so we rarely - if ever - get to see the inner workings of the organisation, which is a shame as it would probably have been very interesting. The arcs are fairly self-contained despite the fact that several major antagonists are recurring characters, so there's no time to truly feel the stories of either the terrorists or their victims. (And I usually enjoy episodic series). There aren't any cool action scenes as such to keep you thoughtlessly entertained, so your mind strays toward philosophical reflection, but even that philosophical thirst is not satisfactorily quenched, so...

...It was a nice read, but I really struggled to get through all 15 volumes. But if you're a melting heart, love watching cute girls in action, and/or are a fan of forbidden/doomed/repressed romance, this is ideal for you.

It's a story about gunslinger girl, girls who's holding gun/weapon. How they become like that, the struggle they have to endure, how they try to survive. Each individual (the girls and another who's relating to them, mainly the handler) is explained perfectly, how they come to their self now. There's action in it, but if you're looking for a fast-pace kind of action you wouldn't find it here. This is the type of story that leave you with warm feeling through reading it, the one that will leave you sympathize with the characters. So yes, it's a story about gunslinger girl.

The first half of the manga is pretty much learning about the characters, much like season one is in the anime. It changes gears in the second half and becomes more fast paced (at least for me)

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It delves into the main objective of the entire manga: Revenge for Jean and Jose's family. The title Gunslinger Girl does work but so does Jean's Revenge, because the entire second half is all about killing the guy who killed the Jean's Fiancee and Jose's (and Jean's) little sister, along with their mother and father.

The ending is a bit more sweet then I expected considering the content of the manga. It refreshing to see that some mangaka know how to end a story.

i cannot say anything that it's a beautiful and tragic manga.although the art was a bit rough throughout the year, it's still beautiful. at least, in my eyes.and the story..............do i need to say anything that it's almost flawless? i don't know any manga which is slow-paced but nerve wracking like this one.the one who dislikes this manga means that he/she is not suited to read anything mature or hard-to-swallow manga. this manga is all about everything goes wrong and yet, there's hope in it.

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and don't get me started how Pinocchio die. it's totally depressing. i'm speechless for several weeks. and the ending..............makes me me cry after that. seeing Christiano becoming so vengeful because of Pinocchio's death...............makes me thinking that the world is too cruel. and yet, we must live within it.

well.............seeing Naruto and other shonen manga like that..............makes me thinking that their world is so peaceful. sorry.yes, GG is a more mature manga than Naruto. so in my mind, it's a seinen manga not a shonen one. well...........it's just in my mind.........now..........i need something to wait for like this one. manga which i like only because of the plot and story are not many u'know.............

I absolutely adore series like Gunslinger Girl, the action the drama, and the story line. I agree with chueisha, there really wasn't much character development with Henrietta, to me I felt she was the main character I understand how the story is really centered on this organization, and all the characters really tell the story it doesn't just focus on her, but for to be the main gunslinger girl,

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I felt very disappointed in the way she died and the way Jose died, I, ean she could have I ed protecting him than die in his arms than he die himself taking revenge on his sister and Henrietta, revenge a bitch. But I did like how the author brought up the murder/suicide from previous chapters, but still am I the only one who sensed mallice intent when Jose asked Henrietta to kill herself? As if he truly didn't believe that she loved him. I'm very glad Rico and her handler (I can't believe I forgot his name!) lived I wish I could have seen more on what happened instead of him with a super 70's look at the end... Anchor man anyone? Did he hook up with his sisters friend?Petra was nice, but I didn't really care for her... I'm not sure why... And Triela I loved her probably my most favorite character, I loved how her handler really stayed with her till the end, I was hoping for those two to make it out alive.

Other than all that, I really enjoyed Gunslinger Girl. I would categorize this as a senien not a shounen.

My problem is that there wasn't that much development for main character, Henrietta. Maybe I missed something but I don't see myself getting much affected by her story. Same with Rico.

I love how everyone is linked to each others. I love how everyone has a reason to kill. You really don't know who's the bad guy or who's the good guy in this manga (at one point the character even questioned that in the manga itself). It's tearjerking. Tragedies all around. Made me cry so much that I got hiccups ;^;

I don't feel like spoiling anything after finishing the manga because I feel dull and tired after crying so much. Most repetitive pattern in the manga is the vicious killing cycle due to revenge. Revenge sucks.

you know, the characters that the mangaka has painstakingly develop is being killed in recent chapters. my experience says, when the the thing which atmosphere being build upon is started to get killed, there is no hope for other to live on. i hope you understand my english (its syntax turns complicated recently)

gunslinger is drama. about children that has no other choice but to live as killing machine. the good thing is, the drama is built slowly, sometimes light-hearted, sometimes mellow. It made us enjoy the story development even more in following chapters. not just "oh, she now doing this."

honmono_no_saru, it is clear you hold grudge against simplistic approach naruto has taken. but they are intended to be read by children. not grown up. which make us, yes, you and me, who inclined to read challenging theme feel a bit disgusted with such unsophisticated development. but i, at least, don't throw flames against its fan. they might haven't taste the delight of well-built complication of storyline.

Okay both of you, since when Naruto and Gunslinger Girl came up in the same box?Naruto is shonen, and Gunslinger Girl basically is more like seinen. The same thing is, they drag to much in the story, both in whack-pow-whack or intensely sad tragic hero.I just want some ending to the manga....

even if you are correct in most of what you say Monyet_Sejatithe story is generallysad innocent killing machine who sit and think about how much she 1.loves her master 2.thinks killing is wrong 3.dont like what she does but do it anyway 4.MORE loving her master 5.looks sad and depressedthen she goes out and kill alot of pplend of chapter/repeatthere is a little more to it but that is pretty much what is going on

The art is nice and even if the story is questionable in alot of ways its entertainingthe main problem for me is that the childassassins are not really needed in the storythe situations could have just as easily been solved with grownup agents who gets paid a shitload of money to do just these kind of jobsthe children is just there to make us care about them and feel sorry for them and read about them

and that mods allow you to hate on naruto for no real reason on this comment section of gunsliger girl is very strangeNaruto is one of the 3 best selling manga and have been since it startedyou might not like naruto but the vast majority do

Don't listen to the Narutard below me. I've bought [yes bought, not downloaded] more than 500 mangas, and Gunslinger Girl easily one of the best, if not the BEST manga I have. Believe me, uthred doesn't have any clue what he's talking about. I even doubt he read anything other than the title.

There's no self-pity scene in Gunslinger Girl. The girls never use their life to justify their killings, I repeat, EVER! Instead, they accept their life with a smile, though they fully understand that their lifespan is short, plagued with severe memory loss, and eventually will be discarded like a used napkins by the Agency.

Aida Yu is smart enough not rush the story. Instead she builds the chemistry between the girls and their agent rather slow, in multiple chapters. It gives us, the reader, enough time to connect with the characters. The main reason why most Shonen -Naruto- fails, is because it spend 2 pages for character developments, and 2131209762 pages for mindless ego-fight, only to end with lame scene, like for friendship, or world peace, or I love you, or something nauseating like that.

If you like brainless manga with zero character exploration and self-righteous main leads, go read Naruto, or Flame of Recca, or something like that. If you like manga with deep character developments and genuinely tragic storyline, read Gunslinger Girl.

Update: LoL, Naruto is one of The *Big 3 Manga*. Oh wow, that is Gold. Narutard never fails to make me laugh. It proves Narutard only read exactly 3 mangas in their life. Look here. They actually have the nerve write comments about manga which they don't even read. Shows us how much credibility a Narutard have.